68 Knots (3 page)

Arthur looked him in the eye.

“What are you going to do about it?” he asked.

Hoon shook his head. “I don't know,” he said. “But I'm going to do it soon.”

Sometime after sundown, when the sky turned black and sparkling and the air carried a chilling breeze, McKinley ordered the counselors to run a rope down the center of the deck. He made the campers take a vinyl mat and sit on it on the deck. He took a deep breath, grinned with his pipe clenched between his teeth, and gestured at the night sky.

“You campers will sleep out here, under the beautiful Maine stars,” he said. “The four boys on the starboard side, the four girls on the port.” He hitched up his belt and took a puff of his pipe. He paced as he talked, his sloppy gait showing no signs of sea legs. “The counselors will sleep below in the mess room, and I'll sleep in the captain's quarters. I do not expect to be disturbed. I will open the door to the forward compartment for just a few minutes, so you all have the chance to use the bathroom before I lock up for the night. Any questions?”

Arthur raised his hand. “Where do we get blankets and things?”

McKinley glared, his clenched pipe and sloping cap looking comical. “You will address me as ‘Commodore' whenever you speak to me. Is that clear?”

Arthur shrugged and nodded.

“Counselors,” McKinley snapped, his eyes suddenly dark and angry, “issue the sleeping bags.”

Hoon and the other two counselors opened several large wooden boxes mounted on the deck. They pulled out a haphazard collection of old sleeping bags, all different sizes and shapes, all different colors, all different degrees of decay. Some were small and bulky, some were threadbare, some smelled strongly of mildew and rot. The counselors tossed one bag to each camper.

“Sleep in these, on top of the mats,” McKinley said. “Make pillows out of your extra clothes.”

“Excuse me, Commodore,” said Logan—“Marshmallow”—brushing his shaggy red hair out of his eyes. “My sleeping bag's totally disgusting. I mean, I think some kinda new life-form has hatched in there, and
it
has athlete's foot. Do ya have any others I could use?”

“Do I have any others?” McKinley barked. “Do I have any others? Listen to this guy! He doesn't
like
his sleeping bag! It doesn't
suit
him. He thinks it's
disgusting
! Well, Mr. Marshmallow, that's just too damn bad. These were the best sleeping bags I could get on the lousy payment your parents paid for this trip, so you're just going to have to live with it. Understand?”

The campers were silent.

The counselors were silent.

“Good,” McKinley said. “Go use the bathroom. I'll lock up in five minutes.”

The next day—Sunday, June 10—was no better. McKinley continued to jab his orders at people, hurling curses and insults
whenever he perceived anything out of place, and then suddenly offering kind and helpful advice. When one camper let go of a line she was supposed to tie off, she was ordered to sit at the dining table for the rest of the afternoon. When another took an unscheduled break from scrubbing down the foredeck, he was told to forget about dinner that evening. But when “Bunny” Marietta failed to scramble at McKinley's command to drop the anchor, he patiently showed her how to work the winch and set the anchor properly. Later, when “Marshmallow” Logan tossed a sarcastic joke at McKinley, his sleeping bag “privilege” was revoked for the night, leaving him to face a frigid night shivering in the Maine air.

“You can sleep in your underwear, for all I care,” McKinley snarled. “That should teach you some respect.”

The following day was even worse. McKinley docked the counselors a day's pay “for controlling the campers so badly,” and he issued half rations for everyone at dinner. Greg “Fred” Anderson, the tallest and strongest of the counselors, got into an argument with McKinley about a punishment inflicted on the campers, and it looked for a moment like he was going to swing a fist and knock McKinley over the side. Instead, Anderson turned and stormed away, and McKinley aimed his attention at some other crisis.

And so it continued, with McKinley shouting and pounding his fists, dispensing punishments at the slightest perceived infraction, and then offering warm and supportive comments at unexpected times. He also spent increasing amounts of time—hours at a stretch—locked in his quarters below. He said he was doing some planning and laying out the course, but nothing ever seemed planned, and the course seemed to change without notice. The only clue anyone could
gather was the squeaky
yump-yump-yump
of the toilet flushing. The crew began to hear that sound often.

It was early one morning, five days into the voyage, that things began to change. The night before, McKinley had ordered the counselors to wake the campers at sunrise “to teach them some much-needed discipline.” He had given them a specific set of navigational directions heading roughly to the northeast, and so shortly after the sun's arrival, the
Dreadnought
was crashing its way through the swells. His final order was that he was not to be disturbed until o-nine-hundred hours.

At about nine o'clock, Greg Anderson, who seemed to function as the senior counselor, gave the helm to counselor Robin Merriman, who flashed a pretty, braces-filled smile. Anderson went below to wake McKinley. As the campers pulled on lines and polished the brass fittings, they could hear Anderson's knocks and calls well up from below. It was clear that he was having little success. He returned ten minutes later and resumed his place at the helm. “Door's locked,” he said. “I can't wake him up.”

The swells were larger than before, and Crystal, the camper assigned to bow watch, defiantly tightened her grip on the bowsprit. Every few minutes, a gush of salty water would crash against the bow and send torrents of foam slashing through the rigging and slamming against Crystal's rigid body. “Bring it on!” she shouted to the sea. “Hit me with your best damned shot. You're not knocking me off of here.” She squeezed the bowsprit between her knees and clenched the rigging in her hands. A wave rose and dropped on her like a wrecking ball. Her tight T-shirt was soaked, and saltwater
streamed off her short blond hair and down her neck. “Is that the best you can do?” she shouted, shaking her head like a dog to clear the sting from her eyes. “Bring it on!”

The wind had whipped into a gale by the time McKinley staggered on deck.

“What the hell's going on here?” McKinley shouted over the wind.

“Storm, sir,” Anderson reported.

“I can see that!” McKinley snapped. “Why the hell didn't you steer us to a safe port? Now we're stuck out here in the middle of the ocean with—”

“With all due respect, Commodore,” Anderson said sarcastically, “I had no way of knowing the storm was coming. The weather radio is locked in your quarters, and I tried several times to get you—”

“Don't give me your excuses, Mister Anderson,” McKinley shouted. “You were at the helm. You were responsible. You should have—”

At that moment, a huge breaker crashed over the rails and onto the deck, unleashing a torment of foam. McKinley and Anderson clung to the wheel as the water pounded against their bodies. When the wave passed, Anderson turned the wheel and pointed the ship toward the harbor.

“You damn well better take us in!” McKinley shouted. “I'll be below, writing up my report and documenting your incompetence!”

McKinley dove down the gangway and disappeared, followed a moment later by the familiar
yump-yump-yump
of the toilet.

That night, Arthur lay on his back, his damp sleeping bag pulled tightly up to his shoulders. The
Dreadnought
had been
at sea for almost a week, and everyone was exhausted. If something didn't change soon—if McKinley didn't back off and start treating people better—Arthur wasn't sure what would happen. But something had to change.

Arthur stared up at the dark sky, brilliant with stars. This trip is sure weird, he thought. When his father had brought home the brochure for “Commodore McKinley's Leadership Cruise,” Arthur had been thrilled. He knew he had no choice in the matter—whenever his father handed information over like that, it was always an order and never a question—but Arthur was delighted at the chance to learn some new skills and imagined the mental and physical toughness he would gain, improving his chances of getting ahead in the world. His father had pushed him to be the very best from the start, and Arthur was grateful that the future looked so very promising. “I have the greatest father in the world,” he remembered thinking when his dad gave him the check to mail off to McKinley. “With his help, I've got it made.”

But this cruise didn't seem like the right sort of thing after all. Arthur was puzzled. His father was rarely wrong. He would have made phone calls, checked references, verified that this cruise was the very best place for his son to learn how to function in a tough and heartless adult world. He was a successful attorney and businessman—one of the best in Albany—and he was not in the habit of making bad investments. He would have researched this cruise thoroughly. Unless he was in one of his busy times. When Mr. Robinson got busy, Arthur knew, family life sometimes took a back seat.

But still, something was wrong here. Arthur felt like he was learning how to follow, not how to lead. And he wanted more than anything to lead. He always wanted to be in front, giving
orders and making decisions and collecting the rewards. “If you fail, son, fail big,” his father had told him. “And then look people in the eye and tell them why it was actually a brilliant success. People forgive big mistakes, but they never forgive weakness.” How was he supposed to learn strength under McKinley? All he could do was follow orders and keep quiet and hope the “Commodore” took his rage out on someone else.

The night sky was breathtaking, and Arthur's eyes followed a faint dot of light moving slowly across the sky's arc. A satellite, he guessed, but he didn't give it much attention. He was listening instead to the few snatches of words he could make out from the argument below.

“
You listen to me . . . hired . . . address me as C
OMMODORE
. . . fire you just as
. . . .” McKinley's tone was tense and angry.

“. . .
haven't paid us anything . . . rude to Greg . . . no
REASON
. . . .” The voice belonged to Robin Merriman. Arthur smiled. She seemed to be holding her ground down there.